Category: Coronation Blue | The Plan

I have been asked by my lovely friend and fellow student Roy Barry to be part of his Coronation Blue Project….

The Story

“I was recently lucky enough to rescue a large and unopened bottle of “Coronation Blue” Ink-a quart in size, produced 60 years ago(at least), this bottle had probably spent its’ entire existence at the back of a school or office stationery cupboard, gathering dust, just waiting to be used as the lifeblood of some young creative’s imaginative musings.

I couldn’t stand the thought of this bottle of as yet uncreated Art being thrown into a skip, so decided to build a collaborative project around it, by inviting as many Artistic friends as I could, to each take it in turns to take custodianship of the bottle and its’ contents, create something vibrant and meaningful with it, then pass it on to other like minds, so they may do the same.

My initial intention was to get all of the Art and Writing collected back here in Wales, and to have an exhibition based on the bottle’s journey and its’ meeting with creative minds, all over the world. I now realise that rather than just being the creator of the idea, I also want to create something meaningful in the project and intend to visit my fellow collaborators and photograph and interview each in turn, and ultimately intend to produce a documentary and book based on this global Art project.

I look at this bottle of beautiful indigo liquid and dare to dream of fabulous and as yet unborn works of Literature and Art, all waiting their time to be brought to life, to shine.”

– Roy Barry

I am so excited to have the chance to create something unique from this ink, what i plan to do is use the ink in one of my composites and i was inspired by Roy’s video of the ink being released into water.

The way it moves and flows is really hypnotising and instantly reminded me of a long swirling sweeping dress like the one from Cinderella.

I then came across this video from Benjamin Shine, an incredible artist from Surrey who uses different mediums to create portraits, i was blown away by how he uses tulle and an iron to make these dynamic floating images.

And after watching this is sparked another piece to my composite, i will photograph my daughter wearing a dress made out of tulle that i will make the same colour as Roy’s ink and then combine the image with the ink and water so the tulle dress has elements from the swirling ink in the water.

A very quick sketch i made on a piece of paper while i was out walking (always good to have a pocket full of receipts and to-do lists and pencils!!) as the different elements that i have discussed all started to come together and form in my mind.

She will be pulling blue tulle down from the sky and as it meets her body its wrapped around her into a dress and then the bottom of the dress will blend into the swirling of the Coronation Blue Ink in water. The background needs to be nondescript, i want the focus to be only in the centre so possibly a a flat field and sky that is all, it will be deep rich but slightly desaturated colours, even the blue will be a little desaturated but not too much so that it becomes flat.

I will be working on this in January, more to follow…..

I then created a Mock-Up Composite using these web-sourced images and a screen shot of Roy’s ink in water:

To create this:

Rather than me try to sketch it, it made more sense to assemble a mock-up composite to build a better visual as a guidance of how i need to the separate elements.